2020 In Review - Family Newsletter

Hello all my friends! 

As you can see, we have just moved! I'm writing this in our two week quarantine from England! 

This year was a little crazy as I'm sure is no exception for most. December 2019 the we moved to Albuquerque to be near Anna's family while Logan was set to deploy for 6 months. We packed all our house stuff in a storage unit in New Jersey and only brought what we could fit in the car with Logan and Connor and two suitcases that Anna and Liam flew out with. Thankfully we were able to borrow some beds, furniture and kitchen items to create a simple and comfortable home. 

We were grateful to be settled in Albuquerque when the coronavirus started to affect the states and things shut down in March. We knew it had been a prompting from our Heavenly Father that made us make the move and we were so glad we listened and followed it. Before things shut down or were extremely limited we were able to see my oldest sister, go to the zoo, a few big parks, the children's museum, and the circus. We had big plans for the summer but it ended up being mostly uneventful. 

Logan left the end of December 2019 and with all the crazy things going on he came back for a little bit which was completely unexpected but left again until August. By the time we got our new assignment and through all the red tap our short 6 month stay in Albuquerque ended up being a year. A great year with lots of time the boys got to spend with grandparents and Anna's sister. We will truly cherish the relationships we were able to strengthen there. 

One last trip before we left we were also able to take advantage of some time off and see Logan's family and some close friends in Utah before we left. 

Over all we were grateful that we had a comfortable home and steady pay check this year. While so many were removed from family this year we were lucky to stay in a close family bubble with Anna's parents and eat dinner almost every night. 

We are excited for what the next year has to bring and look forward to getting settled in England. 

Christmas 2020

 Christmas Eve family photo in our temporary bungalow home. 

Two week quarantine in England

 Here is our bungalow aka 2 bedroom duplex. 

Ice Spider Webs

 We had two and a half days of straight fog. 

It was really cold the second day and we woke up to see all the webs around the backyard had the dew freeze over and they were beautiful. Also because of the ice you could pick them up and hold them. 

Flying to England

  Logan and I finally bought a computer to use so I have something to type on. My last posts were less wordy because it was hard on the phone. But so you know we are all doing well and excited to have made it to England! 

Our flight over was not so bad. Its never easy or fun with little kids but it could have been a lot worse - like we could have been flying to Asia and it take another 10 or more hours. Seriously it is much faster to fly to London than Okinawa. 

I was really proud I was able to get all our stuff down to 4 checked (big) bags. But then our carry-ons kinda got big as we had food for the kids.  

Connor is 6!

 

Liam's Baby Shark Birthday Party

 

My spunky little boy is two! We had a family birthday party for him on his birthday and then I invited a few friends over to celebrate with a big party but neither of them could come so it was just all his family again. But I figure you can never have too much family fun during a pandemic. 

Liam is 2!

Liam is now my newest terror, I mean two-year-old. They say not to compare your kids but Liam is so different from Connor at this age. Both difficult in their own ways but it's like learning to be a parent all over again. I love that I can predict Liam better and communicate more but with that greater understanding from him I also expect better behavior/sharing/attitude/obedience but we all know that doesn't always happen.